Friday, December 6, 2013 LitchFieLD county times / A13www.countytimes.com

LCT

Written by

KAtHryn bOUGHtOnPOrtrAit by tiM tUrner

As everyone knows, mice are inveterate travelers. From time immemorial, they have stowed away—traveling from

port to port on ships or in any other conveyance that would let them hop a ride. Seafaring rodents have traveled with their human cohorts since at least the Iron Age and with them has trav-eled the wisdom of the ages—as most recently evidenced by a world-traveling mouse named Maurice.

Maurice is the wise elder mouse in the new Moonbeam Children’s Book Award-winning series of books penned by J.S. Friedman of New Milford.

In “Maurice’s Valises,” a series of 11 books—four of which have been completed and are now available in hardcover in bookstores and online—the sage senior mouse conveys to his grandchildren moral messages he has gleaned during his travels. The nuggets of wisdom are inscribed on scrolls that Maurice digs from his valises, on which are inscribed universal truths—and thereon hang “moral tails,” in Maurice’s words.

Writing children’s books is a new venture for Mr. Friedman, who, like Maurice, is a world-traveling grandfa-ther who has homes in Thailand and Amsterdam. Writing for a younger audience may be new for the former high-profile photographer, who was sought after by such international adver-tising agencies as Dentsu and Saatchi & Saatchi, but he is no stranger to writing books. He decided to retire early from his advertising career and to experience living around the world. While doing so he realized he could use his photo-graphic skills to document a “hidden minority”—super-centenarians who had lived 110 years or more. His interviews with individuals who had reached extreme old age were translated into a book, “Earth Elders: The Wisdom of the World’s Oldest People.”

While photographing a 112-year-old woman and her wooden memory box for “Earth Elders,” the idea for “Mau-rice’s Valises” began to form in his mind.

“My life has not been linear,” Mr. Friedman said this week as he prepared for a trip to Iceland, where he is working with a team of self-described “com-puter geeks” to perfect an interactive children’s computer game to go with the series of books. “I’ve done different things and the books are to a large de-gree a reflection of what I’ve done. I’ve had a number of experiences that gave me insights into universal points of view about personal conduct.”

He said he found through his discus-sions with super-centenarians that they shared certain characteristics. “One of the ingredients, why they lived as long as they lived, was that they were able to compartmentalize things,” he explained. “They were able to manage their lives in ways that they had many lives. There were independent pieces to the long line of their lives. And they all had really great attitudes; they were happy people

who had an appreciation of simple things.

“When I talked to Betty Wilson, who at the time was almost 116 and the old-est person in the United States—both of her parents had been slaves—she talked about walking through the woods and how beautiful it had been. The coloring of her memory made her appreciate simple things. My own mother was a De-pression-era child, but she didn’t dwell on the lack of food, or the long lines for soup kitchens—her memories were about things that were charming. It’s a valuable way of going through life.”

Another awareness that grew out of his interviews with the extreme elderly was that many of them had an ethical compass for their lives. “There was a lot of morality to the way they viewed their lives,” he said. “That was a significant ingredient.

“Morals are a distilling of universal truths,” he continued. “Less is more; kindness is highest form of morality; the Golden rule recognizes that just because we may be different, we are all special in own gifted way. These are simple things, but they give me a platform from which to write an adventure. I’m not one of the great thinkers—all I do is think about what they have written and redeliver their messages in ways that will engage kids now—but each book has a spe-cific moral, with moral scroll. Maurice sits before a roaring fire and tells the stories.”

Mr. Friedman says that his current work is entwined with all of the career paths he has followed. “I travel, think, write and travel some more,” he said. “In some way, each experience has been the precursor to the next. That woman in Japan with her memory box was in some ways the seed or inspiration for

this project. Her unique way of stimulat-ing her memory was to look at the little items in her memory box.”

Looking at a world that is increas-ingly fragmented and in turmoil, he decided that moral precepts could be conveyed to 5- to 9-year-olds through the reminiscences of an elderly mouse with a lust for travel. “I leveraged [the idea of a memory box] and a light bulb went off in my head and I heard the phrase ‘Maurice’s Valises.’”

Why a mouse? Perhaps because one of his first lessons in empathy came through a mouse. “One of my earli-est childhood memories of a pet was a little mouse I found,” he recalled. “My mother said I couldn’t keep it and it was, ‘Oh, please, oh, please.’ So she said I could keep it a couple of days but would have to let it go so it could go back to its mother. She said, ‘You would want to go back to your mother, wouldn’t you?’ I hadn’t thought of that. So, I thought a mouse would be an interesting character for the books.”

Once he had his concept, his pro-tagonist and his vehicle for telling his stories, he decided that he wanted to be even-handed by representing different countries and cultures. “Whether you are talking about Confucius, Christ or Mohammed, it really isn’t about one religion, one country or one culture,” he said. “The great thinkers are universal thinkers and not culturally specific. That is a good message to give kids, especially in a world that is so fractured.”

He added that he also “wanted something quiet, an introspective way for parents and grandparents to talk to kids.”

Mr. Friedman referred to the “noise”—both visual and auditory—that pervades society today. “Quiet is like medicine,” he said. “It is something

that is clearly missing in children’s lives today. If they can get a few moments of quiet time, their imaginations run wild. In Eastern cultures, they talk a great deal about mindfulness, but here our children are spoon-fed information in ways that doesn’t allow their brains to work.”

He said he targeted 5- to 9-year-olds specifically for his messages. “I chose an age group where they are forming points of view,” he continued. “Espe-cially if it is a bedtime story, it is a good time to think and also a time when kids ask questions. My idea of a moral scroll with a very specific thought was so kids could say, ‘What does that mean?’ and parents can address those questions.”

Mr. Friedman noted that adults are the “style makers” who decide what children are exposed to. “I’ve been thinking about the parents, because they are the delivery system,” he said. But before he commits any story to produc-tion, he uses his own grandchildren as his first audience. “I would not write something I would not read to them,” he said. “It’s a tremendous responsibility because what you’re delivering in terms of information is part of the building blocks of what they will think. So we had best give them whatever we can to be supportive in a tough environment to grow up in.”

He is working with illustrator Chris Beatrice of Massachusetts, whose art has graced book covers for leading publishers such as Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Scholastic and Disney/Hy-perion. “We e-mail back and forth and I describe what I see in my head,” Mr. Friedman said. “He e-mails back and says, ‘I see this and this and this.’ He channels my imagination.”

He said he expects to have all 11 books completed by the end of 2015. “The books are all written,” he said. “It is only a question of how much I can abuse my illustrator.”

‘Moral Tails’ of Maurice the Mouse

J.S. Friedman of New Milford, is the au-thor of “Maurice’s Valises” (cover and a moral scroll shown above).

MATTHEWSGROUPRE.COM

The

Matthews GroupLifestyles Salefor 4 Green Hill Road, Washington Depot

860-868-0511 matthews@raveis.com

WILLIAM RAVEISREALESTATE MORTGAGE INSURANCE

We Would Like to Thank All Our Clients for a Record yearand Wish Everyone a Happy & Healthy Holiday Season!

We Would Like to Thank All Our Clients for a Record yearand Wish Everyone a Happy & Healthy Holiday Season!

New Art Show Featuring:Harold Lewis “Out of the Basement”

Opening ReceptionCelebrate with Us!Festive Food and Champagne for Adults

Holiday Craft Projects and Treats for the Kids

Friday December 13th, 4pm-8pmFriday December 13th, 4pm-8pm

Join us for

Holiday in the DepotHoliday in the Depot